Hi BT Community!
Around mid-April I installed my fibre broadband from BT. It didn't work out-of-the-box when connecting everything up, and because of COVID-19 OpenReach were not sending out engineers at the time. By chance, I called my landline number to separately check whether that worked (it did) and then the Internet connection began to work.
However, the connection would drop out randomly, every 45 minutes or less. Sometimes as often as every 2 minutes. There was no obvious reason as to why the disconnections were happening. Restarting the hub didn't fix the problem. Leaving the router to sort itself out did not fix the problem. Using the Troubleshooting guide that loads when the connection drops did not fix the problem.
However, calling my own landline number, hanging up and waiting approx 20 seconds always fixed the problem. I don't know why this fixed the problem, but it was a simple fix at the time so I continued to use this method for a few weeks.
Since that initial spurt of daily disconnections, there had only been the approx 10 disconnections in total over the next 3 months - until last Friday when it happened a handful of times, and today. Today it's happened at least 10 times so far in 2.5 hours, and as I'm working from home this is not ideal. Ironically, it's cut out twice while trying to make this post.
I've already scoured the Internet and this forum over the last 3 months, and already tried all the "usual" stuff such as:
- Quiet line test: everything has been perfectly quiet and fine every time I've made the call from the landline itself. Making an inbound call to the landline whilst the Internet connection has dropped results in some noise/interference. But it's not something I can replicate every time
- Changing the filter / using the test socket: no change using either of these methods. Still the same problem occurs
- Disabling Smart Setup: there seems to be a common problem with iPhones and Smart Setup - disabling this fixed an issue with my parents' connection dropping out. No difference for my problem, though.
I've checked the router logs and whilst I can see when the disconnection occurs ("DSL Link Down"), there's not always a common theme in the previous log entries. Sometimes there is port forwarding occurring - supposedly by me but I'm definitely not doing that.
My upload/download speeds aren't great, and I'm in quite a rural area in Cornwall full of old granite farmhouses that get battered by the wind and rain. So I believe it to be a physical issue with the line/cabinet in the area. I've previously logged a line fault with BT and got a successful "its fixed!" response a few days later, but no one turned up and there is no way to respond to that without logging a new fault through another automated process. I also called and asked for an engineer to be sent but was told it would cost £130 and be "a long time". I don't want to pay £130 when it's not my problem.
The only thing that is throwing me is how the only solution is to call the landline. I've replaced all wires up to the dropwire that comes into the property, but the problem remains. Anything more "technical" like restarting the hub etc does not fix the issue.
What could be causing this issue? Do I keep logging line faults and hope they are investigated?
Thanks in advance!
